THE AMATEUR GAME Rugby played a significant part in Dick Graham’s life from his schooldays until his mid-twenties. He first played rugby as an eight year old in the Maori Hill School C team, a side determined by weight, in the mid-1940s. The official team jersey was red with a white collar but the Standard Two player was not pleased with the gear he was given. “I had a jersey that went back to the 1920s. It was a thick woollen jersey and it had the leather shoulder pads sewn on the outside and no collar. I was a bit annoyed about that – I wanted the smarter more modern jersey with a white collar.” The youngster was selected to play halfback: “I wasn’t very tall which is probably why I was chosen as halfback. And I enjoyed myself as halfback. It was in the days when Charlie Saxton was doing his dive pass and we were all dive passing. I think we cleared the ball reasonably well from the base of the scrum.” The C team played the same sort of rugby as adult teams on a full length field. Although he was new to team sports Dick Graham was already developing his competitive streak. “The first game we played was against Kaikorai at Bishopcourt and we lost 9-0. Our fullback was a guy called Jeffrey Ritchie and because we lost he was made the scapegoat. “I remember going home and telling Mum: ‘Oh that Jeffrey Ritchie – he was a proper fool!’” Mr Graham admits he was a bit hazy about the rules at the time. “Kaikorai was awarded a couple of tries which I didn’t think were tries because they weren’t scored under the posts. That’s as much as I knew about rugby – thinking tries had to be scored under the posts.” In Standard Three he was too heavy for the C team but not good enough for the Bs who were much older pupils. His problem was sorted out in Standard Four when he was good enough to play for the Bs. In Standard Six, the school did not have enough players for A grade rugby so the boys switched codes temporarily. “All the guys who were A grade weight played soccer instead. And I must say of all the rugby teams I was in, the only team I won a competition in was the Maori Hill A grade soccer team. And I scored a goal in every game too!” Mr Graham laughs. In 1948 Dick Graham saw his first big match at Carisbrook, Auckland versus Otago with the northerners leading at half time but the home side winning at full time. “My father took me to the game and we arrived when it was just starting. My father was just five feet six or thereabouts and we found ourselves behind the goalposts at the railway workshops end. “He moved me forward and I finally ended up sitting on the grass behind the dead ball line. I thoroughly enjoyed it but when my father was asked if he enjoyed it too, he said: ‘Well, I couldn’t see a bloody thing for the goalpost.’” Mr Graham went on to King Edward Technical College for his secondary education and in his first year made it into the Second XV. That is when he switched from halfback to hooker. “We didn’t win many games either. When the Tech Second XV played Port Chalmers – we had to go on the train – a guy who lived at Port Chalmers but went to Tech scored our only try and we lost 45-3. That’s when tries were worth three points.” Despite their lack of success on the rugby field the players trained hard. They had two days a week of boxing training at the YMCA gym in Moray Place. Because there was no rugby field at Tech the players also ran over to Montecillo where they did rugby training. In 1952 the 15 year old had made it into the First XV but a decision by the NZRFU brought disillusionment with rugby. He had expected his hero - legendary prop Kevin Skinner to be named captain of the All Blacks but the selectors chose Bob Stuart instead. “I made up my mind there and then that I would play rugby league. I would show the idiots who did that to my hero! But later on I came to my senses.” George Jones who played a few games for Otago in the Ranfurly Shield era from 1947 to 1952, coached the Tech First XV. “He had been coached by Vic Cavanagh and Charlie Saxton and he really instilled in me the basics of rugby. He had a philosophy of ‘fitness, fundamentals, forward domination and persistent attack,’” says Dick Graham. The Tech First XV came third in the Dunedin secondary schools competition which was won by John McGlashan College. “I remember we played John McGlashan at Tahuna Park on a very wet day and they were ahead 15-0 at half time. George Jones got us under the grandstand at half time and said: ‘Come on you lot, they’re only a bunch of Presbyterian gentlemen. Now get out and get into them!’ Well, we lost 15-14. It’s a shame he hadn’t mentioned that to us before – we might have won,” Mr Graham recalls. When he left school, Dick Graham joined the Kaikorai Rugby Club and played in the fourth grade. “I remember one wet night when they decided we would not do any training outside Alex McDonald who had been an All Black in 1905, came in and showed us how to go down on the ball. Here was this elderly slight man throwing himself down on to the hard board floor. I was quite staggered that he was able to do that.” In 1955 Dick Graham graduated to the senior team but at 17 did not join his team- mates in an after-match beer or two because beer wasn’t drunk at home. However, by the following year he had acquired a taste for beer and knew the rugby players’ routine for getting into a pub after the six o’clock closing time. The Kaikorai senior team was not particularly successful when Dick Graham was its hooker. “When they introduced promotion/relegation we always seemed to play the final relegation game against Alhambra. “The rugby we played wasn’t terribly exciting. I’m sure the same spectators only came week after week because they wanted to get out of mowing the lawns!” Dick Graham first played at Carisbrook in the Under-19 Town versus Country match which was the curtain raiser to the first All Blacks-Springboks test of 1956 which attracted a crowd of 42,000. “My parents were on the terrace to watch the matches. They took their lunch in a small suitcase and my father had his lunchbox at his feet but it was so crowded he couldn’t actually bend down to pick it up.” Dick Graham reached the pinnacle of his rugby career when he was selected for the Otago team in 1961. Although the team had five All Blacks: Dave Gillespie who captained Otago, Ian Smith, Don Clark, Tony Davies and Earle Kirton, it lost 10 of its 13 matches. The young hooker was fortunate enough to go on a northern tour with the Otago team. “The game against North Auckland was my first game for Otago and I think I did reasonably well but we lost narrowly. “Then we travelled by bus down to Frankton Junction and got on the overnight train to Wellington. The Millard Stand had not long been completed at Athletic Park and I remember going to the ground before the match, looking at the ground and feeling the stand shudder in the wind. We lost that match.” The players were given half a dozen bottles of beer each and were warned to keep their bottles out of sight while they travelled south on the ferry to Lyttelton. Although he was only 23, Mr Graham was going bald and when a ruckus developed amongst the players the ship’s purser came along and grabbed him. “Are you the bloody manager of this outfit?” he snarled to the player who was actually the youngest in the team. The next match was against Canterbury at Christchurch where Dick Graham played against All Black hooker, Denis Young. The hooking rules were different then and both hookers won the ball off their own scrums. The Otago hooker then decided to try for a tighthead using illegal tactics. “Denis Young got the ball as he should have, then said to me: ‘Alright son, if that’s the way you want it, that’s the way it’s going to be.’ I shivered and shook because here was mighty Denis Young, the All Black hooker giving me a chance instead of knocking my head off, but leaving me with the impression that that was what was going to happen if I didn’t behave. “What I should have done was immediately knock his head off! He would have got the biggest shock of his life and I would have gone on and won the hooking duel!” Mr Graham says in hindsight. Dick Graham retired from rugby in 1963 after damaging his shoulder. There was no ACC in those days. “I had to have six weeks off work and I got about four pounds 10 shillings a week – some came from Social Security and some from the Rugby Union. At that stage I would have been earning about 11 pounds as a carpenter. “Guys who weren’t living at home were paying about three pounds 10 for board so if I’d been boarding I would have been struggling to make ends meet.” Dick Graham says he would have loved playing rugby in the professional era but concedes the players of his day lacked the fitness and speed of their counterparts today. “I was carpentering and did a full days’ work at a hard job, then went and played rugby. A lot of guys in my era worked at freezing works or were farmers – they were physically tough but I think the speed of today’s game would have made it difficult for them,” he says. This item from the Otago Age Concern Publication Memories are Made of This is used with permission Page 1